A report says U-S hospitals have improved the care they offer for heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia.
The report by the Joint Commission, a hospital accrediting group, examined how well more than three-thousand hospitals follow guidelines for care of the potentially deadly conditions. It found that quality improved consistently from 2002 to 2005.
The report says 96 percent of heart attack patients were given aspirin when they arrived at the hospital in 2005, which can save lives. That represented an improvement from 2002.
But about 40 percent of heart-failure patients left the hospital in 2005 without specific instructions about follow-up care. That was an improvement from 2002, but is considered still too high.
The biggest improvement was in providing advice to pneumonia patients on how to stop smoking.
%@AP Links
On the Net:
Federal hospital quality reports: http://www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov
Joint Commission quality reports: http://www.qualitycheck.org